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| Simamkele Dlakavu |
Simamkele Dlakavu, The Daily Maverick
Our academic spaces in
South Africa are often referred to as an 'extension of Europe': due to the
settler colonialism we were not seen as an African state, but rather an
extension of the European colonial project in which white supremacy still
reigns supreme.
White supremacy says that
African history, experiences, and thought are inferior compared to Western
history, thought and experiences. Furthermore, it says, black African lecturers
don’t have valuable contributions to make to the academic space, and the larger
production of knowledge. One of the two important moments where this debate has
formed part of mainstream public discourse in post-apartheid South Africa was
with the 'Mamdani affair' at UCT and the 'Makgoba Affair' at WITS. Both these
academics were challenging the post-apartheid academy and the ways it should
reflect its African grounding in its curriculum.
At the University of
Witswatersrand, post-graduate students in the Political Studies department are
reviving this debate and taking it further by challenging their department to
transform. They have gone beyond complaining: they have now self-organised and
formalized the process. Together, these post-graduate students drafted a
'Transformation Memorandum' which has been circulated to the Political Studies
department, the Vice-Chancellor and the general university management. In their
twenty-nine page memorandum, these students present two grievances, firstly:
the lack of transformation in the demographics of the departmental staff. As it
currently stands, the department has no black African lecturer and only has two
female lectures (with the third just recently retiring). The students state
that 'the bulk of knowledge production can no longer issue from a small segment
of the population'. Their second grievance is the lack of black and African
thought in the university curriculum. They state 'the lack of even a single
black staff member in a department concerned with the political history of
South Africa, among other topics is problematic' and therefore they demand 'a
literal and physical demographic shift'. As affirmed in their document, these
students are of 'different races and [and genders]; espouse different political
stances and religions; and come from different social and economic backgrounds'.
As a politics
post-graduate student myself at the same department and although not based on
campus – partaking in this process represented three main questions for me: how
the university reproduces the status quo and maintains its power; issues of
exclusion (of who belongs in this space and whose experiences matter); and the
ideas around the society we want to create (and the problems we expect young
people to solve).
The academic space is not
a neutral space; academia has been used and is used to serve racialised
interests of dominant ideas, classes, and interest in society. This is clearly
evident in our country’s history. This is one of the major points highlighted
by the students when they state that 'it seems inconsistent and hypocritical of
Political Studies that we learn certain narratives and paradigms within
politics that only serve the status quo of [the] political past and interests'.
Furthermore, they affirm that political theory is not universal, nor is it
neutral: it is rooted in power and therefore the department 'fails to recognize
that ultimately Western scholarship will always leave out the story and
viewpoint of the colonised. In the end theory is not universal nor is it
neutral, even though currently we act as though it is'. To challenge this, in
their draft, they also provide 'suggestions of courses that could be offered
rooted in the work of African thinkers'. Thinkers such as Ali Mazrui, Ben
Magubane, Archie Mafeje, Anna Julia Cooper, Kathryn Gines, Noel Chabani
Mangayi, William Jones, Du Bois, Toni Morrison, Paul Saba, Raj Patel, Lewis
Gordon. And courses such as 'post-colonial studies' in which they state would
'include the study of post-colonial African leaders who were also prominent
writers, philosophers and political theorists'. They go on to name leaders who
became the first president of their African states such as Léopold Senghor
(first president of Senegal and creator of the concept ‘Negritude’), Ahmed
Sékou Touré (first president of Guinea), Kwame Nkrumah (first president of Ghana),
Julius Nyerere (first president of Tanzania). Furthermore they want 'The
mainstreaming of African literature in all current courses from Democratic
Theory to Development Studies to Political Sociology, which will require
willingness on the part of lecturers to research beyond their comfort zones and
familiarise themselves with new literature'. One of their other objectives is
'an increase in black academics within the Social Sciences.'
In an African
institution, it is surprising that we are having the same debates that the
black minorities is having in the United States (especially at predominantly
white institutions) and in the United Kingdom, where they feel that their
history and scholars are not reflected in academic institutions. In an African state,
a country were black people are the overwhelming majority, it is surprising.
Black students want to feel like they belong, that their history and the
experiences of their people matter. Even when it comes to language, they state
that 'the presence of black lecturers creates the space in which those who are
simultaneously working through their degrees and improving their language
skills can potentially engage with one of their lecturers in their home
language for the purposes of explaining concepts and words'.
Additionally, what was
quite striking in their memorandum, were the students personal reflections, in
which resonated with me. I remember in the second semester as a first year
student, having only been taught by white lectures and my first encounter with
a black lecturer coming first in the powerhouse that is Professor Pumla Gqola
in that Media Studies class on Visual Culture. Words cannot express what that
moment represented for my then 18 year old black girl self to see an
accomplished professor, who shared the same race, gender, home language and
province as me. It made me believe that I too can reach that level and I can
belong in that space. What Gqola represented for me is the same feeling that
honours student Nduvho Ramulongo expresses here:
“My mother was a domestic
worker. I lived with her in the white residential area [in which] she worked.
In my eyes white people were always superior and I could never relate to them
in any way but as [superioriors to me]. I did not realize it but unconsciously
because of their position in that sense I have always just accepted what the
lecturer was saying without questioning it and this restricts my ability to
engage in class… Having some black lecturers in the department will go a long
way in making black students feel that they belong in these institutions…”
Exposure to Professor
Gqola also introduced me to the work of other black scholars and black female
scholars, something that Masters student, Luke Feltham, says is missing in the
department:
“I personally find it
lamentable that I have reached Masters level in this subject at one of Africa’s
leading universities yet the only non-Western theorists I have studied in
course work are Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko- brilliant thinkers but only a drop
in the ocean of African intellectual thought”
With the average age of a
South African being 24 years old and Africa being the youngest growing
continent in the world, we are looking to young people to solve our societal
challenges, to be innovative, to create employment. But how do we expect young
people to solve Africa’s problems when they know little about the continent and
cannot even situate themselves within Africa? As young people who have been
challenged to be the leaders of today and not tomorrow, as we grapple with the
kind of society we want to build and the problems we want to solve, more
universities and schools in the country and the wider continent should place
greater value in teaching African history and thought. As Dr Maya Angelou
states, “he/she who does not learn from his or her history is doomed to repeat
it…. at nauseam”.
